


The Beginnings of Change

by biowhathaveyoudone



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Brief mild language, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 14:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3940513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biowhathaveyoudone/pseuds/biowhathaveyoudone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leha Brosca and Zevran have their first conversation directed at her backstory rather than the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginnings of Change

Leha Brosca sat at the edge of camp staring out into the darkness. She and Sten had taken first watch. He stood on the opposite side of camp, arms crossed. The bustle of the camp had stilled and the only noises that broke the calm anymore were the faint breeze and signs of the animals that lurked in the darkness. There was nothing dangerous enough lurking though and she was rather relaxed. She almost felt her ears prick as a tent flap opened and footsteps began moving towards her. Light, careful steps. Leliana or Zevran. Considering Leliana was relieving her for second watch in a few hours, it was probably Zevran. She was pleased to find herself correct as she glanced over as the Antivan approached, casual smirk in place.

“Do I want to know why you’re smirking?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I have you alone, of course, my lovely Warden,” he replied, sitting beside her.

“Shall I head off your question with my answer?” He laughed.

“You do not know what I will ask. Perhaps I will surprise you.” She cocked her head. It seemed he truly had something on his mind.

“Ask then.”

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Why?” she shot back immediately, suspicious.

“Though the mysterious beauty works enchantingly well on you my Warden, I would like to know more.” He grinned winningly.

“No,” she said flatly.

“Then another reason perhaps,” he pushed. “I have answered many of your questions about myself. Would you answer some of mine about yourself?” Her eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out whether there was anything more than just curiosity in his head.

“Come now,” he urged as the silence grew. “A question or two couldn’t hurt. I have not tried to kill you in quite a few weeks now after all.” That drew a snort from her and his grin flashed wide and bright at the sound. Rolling her eyes at him, she considered. Weeks was accurate, it was closer to a month than a fortnight since he had attempted to assassinate her and Alistair. He had not attempted anything more and, despite his utter lie in his lock picking skills, at least compared to her skill, had been rather useful both in battle and in both discussion of and sparring with dual blade techniques. In fact, just that day he had taken out an archer in Morrigan’s blind spot that could have seriously injured her. Though not ready to let her guard down completely, he had certainly earned much of her trust. Quite a bit more than she had ever expected if she was being truthful.

“Alright Zevran. A few questions,” she said, smirking slightly. He grinned widely.

“Excellent. I must admit to knowing little of the dwarves, but your tattoo is not unique, no?”

“You’d be better off calling it a brand,” she replied, leaning back on her hands. “Orzammar works under a caste system. Those born casteless are marked so the nobles and commoners alike know who to look through and spit on. Children are marked before most have their first memory. Basically what you need to know is boys get their father’s caste and girls get their mother’s caste. Then it’s just like any other city. Nobles ignore the problems of the commoners while fighting each other for more power. The commoners make their lives and thrive on having a group of people below them, imagining they’re nobles, and the casteless live below them all forced to beg, find work under a crime boss, or crawl away to die.”

“You worked for a crime boss then.” There was no question in his voice and she grinned briefly.

“Yep. Easiest way to cover yourself and your family. Especially when you’re good at it. I did Behrat’s dirty work, he never liked getting involved unless it was to threaten whoever wasn’t working enough to cover the coin he was paying into them or their family. I was good at it, getting better. I had plans to kill him within the year, take over.”

“Ambitious. Though I have no doubt you would have succeeded,” laughed Zevran approvingly, flashing a knowing smile. She returned it with one her own.

“You ever advance that way?” she asked. His grin turned cheeky.

“Ah, ah, Warden. It is my turn to ask the questions tonight.” She rolled her eyes but was still smiling.

“Yes, yes. Go on then.”

“Well, working as you were for a crime boss, the obvious question is how did you come to be recruited as a Grey Warden?”

“Now that is a story,” she grinned, leaning forwards. So she told it, as only she could. She shifted as she spoke, turning more towards him and gesturing with her hands as he laughed and stared and grinned at the appropriate parts. She grinned and laughed right back, his laughter infectious. It wouldn’t be until much later that she realized how at ease she was in that moment.

“I would have paid good coin to see the looks on their faces when they realized it was you underneath that armor,” he laughed.

“You probably can,” she laughed back. “When we go to Orzammar just head over to the Provings and ask around. I’ll bet you thirty silver you will hear the words ‘affront to the Ancestors’ and ‘a disgrace of the Provings’.” She had sobered slightly saying this. Her grin no longer reached her eyes. He cocked his head slightly and filed away his suspicions for later, instead focusing on bringing back the bright Leha he was starting to see more and more of. He did not disapprove of this in the slightest, relishing the smile she had for him in those moments.

“Now, now my lovely Warden, if I’m to take that bet, I want odds. Very good ones at that since I can see a large bearded dwarf saying that with his nose at a very particular angle in the air even now.” She laughed again, the smile returning to her eyes and he grinned triumphantly. He slid closer to her, well within her personal space.

“Do I get another question my Leha?” She rolled her eyes, shoving him back to his previous spot.

“Last one Zevran,” she said, a smirk tugging at her lips. He pouted briefly, more at the idea of the end of the conversation in sight than her denial of him once more, but as he pondered, his expression grew serious. The images of her grim, lost in her own thoughts and memories on the different nights since he had joined flashed to him.

“Where is it you go when you stare into the fire so intently?” His voice was soft, devoid of the suave humor it almost always danced with. Her head snapped around, a heated denial on her lips, but it died as she saw something genuine shining in his eyes. The unexpectedness of whatever it was, and as bizarre as it seemed her first instinct called it concern, had the reply leave the cage she had trapped it in.

“My sister…”

“She is still in Orzammar?” Leha nodded even as her brow creased with concern and stress.

“I did what I had to do to keep her from the Carta, the crime bosses, because Ancestors know our mother wouldn’t drag herself out of a bottle long enough to do it. I did what I had to do, whatever that meant,” she repeated, her eyes flashing. As much as anger showed on her face, her voice trembled ever so slightly. Zevran nodded, simple understanding in his eyes as he placed a hand briefly on her knee, lingering only to squeeze gently before it slid away. It was a shock for her to realize it wasn’t unwanted.

“It wasn’t enough,” she said shortly, turning away from him and the confusion his apparently genuine actions were causing.

“Your sister was younger?”

“Older,” she replied, shaking her head. “And pretty. She was always pretty. Long red hair like silk, green eyes. Wide full mouth. When I found out what they wanted to do, I tried to step in. But how could I compete against her? Nose that’s been broken one too many times. Muddy brown eyes, brown hair. A mouth that’s too small. She’s as pretty as I am plain.” Zevran was frowning now.

“Enough of that, my Warden. Plain you are not.” She shot him a look.

“Truly,” he insisted. “You are beautiful dear Leha.”

“Zevran,” she warned again, but she had to fight the smile that wanted to appear. He was always so sincere with his compliments even when he had used them to try and keep himself alive or to wheedle his way into her bed. He sulked briefly, making very clear his disapproval of how she had referred to herself before his curiosity reasserted itself.

“What did they want her to do?” She pressed her lips together briefly, anger flashing in her eyes.

“The dwarves are dying. With darkspawn pushing at our barriers, we’re losing too many warriors too fast and the nobles scramble for enough children to both fight the darkspawn and continue their houses. They’re desperate enough to try with the casteless. A girl child, the tryst forgotten, yet another life worth less than dirt. But a boy, a boy would be noble caste and that casteless girl and her family risen up to noble caste with it.” Zevran’s face had hardened.

“My work was not enough for Beraht, the filthy nug-humper, I worked my ass off for him and behind my back he started putting coin into my sister, putting her in nice clothes, having her tutored in elven poetry and working on her voice. And when I tried to stop it, I was laughed at, told I was only good for what I was doing and my family was becoming too costly to support with just what I was doing. And to top it off, my sister starts insisting I should be striving for more, that I could be more when all I had ever done was to keep him from looking at her like that.” She was seething now, fingers curled into fists. Still the words came, gushing from behind the carefully built dam constructed over years of her life, now broken and shattered.

“He looked at her like she was nothing. Something to allure, to seduce, to carry a child and hope to the Ancestors it came out a boy so he could get what he thought he always deserved. I could handle being nothing. I learned how to be nothing, to have them look at you like that. I learned how to take a life and feel nothing. I learned to become this mark,” she jabbed viciously at the tattoo on her cheek, “and to become everything the castes think we are, to become nothing so it couldn’t be used against me. I learned to be nothing. I _am_ nothing so she didn’t have to be and even in that I _failed_.” Her breath came in pants as she stared at Zevran a humming second before she realized what she had done. It had all come tumbling out, everything she had caged away for so long and now of all people, Zevran knew. She wanted to feel angry. Anger was safe, familiar. But it drifted away and instead, she felt the sharp and pointed grasp of fear. His eyes hadn’t moved from her since she had started to speak and under his gaze she felt exposed and vulnerable like she hadn’t been for years and years. Still his eyes didn’t move and she twisted away from them. Her movement broke his shock, bewilderment, whatever he had been feeling that had kept him frozen. Grabbing her shoulder, he turned her back towards him.

“You do not feel nothing.” His voice was urgent, borderline desperate. The same urgency shone in his eyes. “It wouldn’t hurt you if you did.” Now she felt the sting of anger but before she could say anything, he spoke again, quenching the burn of rage before it had begun and sending her straight to shock.

“You are not nothing. You are _not_. You must never believe you are.” All she could do was blink at him. It wasn’t the words that had her speechless. She was quite sure if any of her companions had been in Zevran’s place, she would have gotten variations on the same thing. It was the way he said it, the way his eyes burned into hers so urgently. She couldn’t look away from him, from his utter conviction she was worth something.

It was he who moved and broke what happened between them. He released her shoulder, the urgency gone from his movements and his eyes. In its place was a hesitance as if his words, as hers had been, had come unbidden.

“Does anyone else…”

“No.”

“My lips are sealed dear Warden,” he assured with the smallest of smiles.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Her eyes flicked to him. She opened her mouth before closing it again and looking back out into the night.

“You have third watch. You should get some sleep before then Zev.”

“As you wish my Warden,” he said, the standard fullness and cockiness returning to his voice. But he was distracted as he walked back to his tent. His mind burned with her story, words repeating in his head. He felt many different emotions fighting to be known, some he did not wish to deal with. So he shoved it all away as he had learned to do so well, and instead began to smile slightly. Zev to my friends he had said that fateful day. Whether she realized it or not, she had sent him away with that nickname. Things had changed, to be sure, but the only one he cared about and allowed himself to consider was that step towards friendship. Perhaps they were even friends now. It was certainly an odd thing for him to speak without thinking about it first and entirely strange to think about. So instead he retreated to what was familiar, what was safe, and considered how this new information could help him into her bed. Oh, he wanted her. Strong women were much more common than people liked to think, and they always had that exotic pull that teased and taunted. But with her, that pull had doubled since their talk. He wanted to have her, to have that small, almost dainty mouth that had allured him from the first moment, to show her what he saw and she did not. He could see her so easily writhing under his touch, the stresses placed, both by others and herself, on her shoulders forgotten. His body stirred at the image. He almost chuckled as he ducked into his tent and shifted his thoughts again, unwilling to indulge in his fantasies and take care of what arose as a result before his watch began. Laying back on his bedroll, not bothering to remove his armor for the few hours until his watch, he put his hands behind his head and stared up at the dark canvas.

“Lovely Leha,” he sighed to himself as he pondered the hold she had over him, starting of course with her hold on his life and moving through the other parts of his life she had so casually but firmly inserted herself into. It had become routine to sharpen their daggers together, spar on the days they had the chance, try out the blades they came across on their travels. In battle, they moved well together, similar skill sets telling them where the other would move, one distracting, the other with a dagger to the back. And though there was still wariness on her part, not unearned and she was no fool to have it despite his own wishes it would vanish and soon, he felt comfortable with her. An odd thing to be sure and nothing he could have ever thought would happen. Yet he found the ache of his fateful last mission had lessened because of it. He sighed again.

Confused. He was very confused. What did it mean? A question not answered easily or any time soon for that matter. Rather than begin that quest, he simply asked himself a question he always did when he was unsure how to proceed. What did he want? Her. He wanted Leha unquestionably. With the easy answer, his confusion receded and he refocused. With the time they were spending together, he was sure he could get her to invite him into her tent. He wondered briefly if she realized or thought about the time they spent together on a regular basis. He would have been quite surprised to find out she was, at that very moment in fact.

Leha was still staring out into the darkness, trying to figure out when exactly she had become so comfortable with him that everything she had locked away had tumbled out so easily, trying to figure out exactly why she seemed to trust him more than she even allowed herself to. In fact, why had she been so at ease speaking with him? When had she begun to truly enjoy their interactions? Was that the reason it had come tumbling out? Her defenses weakened from the time they had sat speaking about the rest of her past? But as she was relieved from watch by Leliana and she walked back to her tent, she put it away. He had spoken the truth when he promised his silence. Curled into her bed, she gathered all that had been laid bare and locked it firmly away. It did her no good to dwell on those thoughts, and forcing her mind clear as she had done so many times before, she drifted to sleep.

The following morning, Leha and Zevran both acted as if the previous night had not occurred, approving of the other’s willingness to leave it as it was. If anyone in the camp, those two included, noticed that Leha had begun to refer to him consistently as Zev, nothing was said. They packed up camp and moved on, all unaware of the change that hung around them.


End file.
